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That happens to be my favourite combination too – or one of my favourite combinations. It shouldn’t be too hard to get a scarf or two done with those colours, and will of course look great in the group’s featured pattern, stripes.

Here’s the complete list so far. That brings it to 9 participating states so far. It’s great to get this going early. Several more state programs will announce colours in the late summer, and with only 2-3 months left before their deadline to receive scarves, some of the states don’t meet their goal.

So any time you’re in between projects and don’t know what to do, choose a colour combo, and start a striped scarf.

The first deadline is 1 November for SO Iowa. Yes, 1 November already! as in 3 weeks from now!!

I’m not worried about SO Iowa though – they’ve got their own fan base of crafters who help them meet their goal for the year. But if you want to whip up a quick scarf or hat for them, their colours are Bone and Autumn Red.

Our group’s featured pattern this year is Waves and Chevrons. These are samples from a previous Scarf Project year.

If your state is not participating, please do consider making an item or two for another participating state. And if you can’t decide on a state, look through the colour combos on the list, and pick one. The more exciting ones are the main colour/accent colours ones – you can really let your imagination run wild with those!

SO Arkansas has another interesting combo – any 2, 3, or 4 of these colours.

Help spread the word as well. And you’re more than welcome to join the Facebook page and Ravelry group to connect with other crafters working on the Scarf Project (see links in the sidebar).

There was a call for preemie hats for an NICU, in one of my groups. Ashley H was making goodie bags for the NICU in memory of her son, and she wanted to add some hats to the bags. I put the call out to the group, and although she was only asking for 21 hats, I’m sure she’s going to get double that, because you know how generous crafters are with their yarn 😁

Not having made too many preemie hats, I thought this was a good in-between project, since I can’t seem to get settled on starting a project. And I found the perfect yarn in the stash … Sirdar Baby Bamboo! I bought them from a detash group months ago. No idea what I was going to do with them, but I liked the colours … Powder Blue and Iris Blue.

For the crochet hat – the one on the right – I just crocheted front post double crochet all the way around. That is a great stitch – it looks good, has enough texture, and the finished project stretches nicely, even if you crochet tight. For the knit hat, I decided to practice the Rick Rack Rib pattern. I had tried it a couple of times, but wasn’t seeing the pattern clearly. But with this yarn, the pattern showed up nicely.

And here they are, all finished. For size comparison, they’re on top of a regular teen/adult small hat. The rick rack rib pattern needs to be knit back and forth. I tried to knit it in the round, but it didn’t work out. I’ve googled if it can be done in the round, but I didn’t find anything. So I knit a little rectangle, and then a decrease for the crown, and finished it off by seaming the two ends together. It’s turned out ok – still a few things to improve. I hope the joining isn’t too lumpy or hard for the babe heads.

Oh! I was also practicing the double knit stitch for the brim. That also needs to be knit back and forth. Again, I didn’t find anything if it could be done in the round. But this turned out ok. So next time I knit hats, I’ll use larger needles for the brims in double knit, and then the pattern. This is probably old news for the experienced knitters, but this is exciting new for me! 😀

This is what it looks like on the other side, so you know what it looks like. I think when learning a new stitch, it’s always helpful to see what both sides look like. Most tutorials only show the ‘right’ side of the stitch, and what the pattern looks like done the right way. That’s helpful too, but I also want to see what the ‘wrong’ side looks like, in case I’m still doing it wrong, and also just because I want to see it 😬

Anyway … here’s the inside of the hats. The double knit brim looks the same as the front. The rick rack rib pattern looks like a loose garter stitch. The crochet fpdc looks like horizontal knit stitches. Cool, isn’t it?